Well that was unexpected!

At least it was unexpected by me.  For reasons unfathomed by hubby or myself, we set out to visit friends living about an hour away in a very “country” section of Connecticut yesterday afternoon – without checking the weather forecast!  On Friday I had noted that Saturday’s forecast was calling for an inch or two of snow.  Eh! I thought, what’s an inch of snow?

Our arrival in Woodstock CT was greeted with a very slippery driveway – a covering of snow over some previously frozen ice.  All the husbands from my group of friends, plus daughter’s boyfriend, worked at getting my little red Ford unstuck from the bottom of the driveway.  With several of these helpful souls pushing and my driving and trying to steer up the upward curving driveway, we arrived at the top with several fewer layers of rubber on my tires.

After that eventful start to our get-together, we settled inside for drinks, food, conversation and laughter with dear friends.  Outside, the snow continued to pile up.  We noticed snow plows passing by several times on the country dirt road.  My husband’s concern for our travel home deepened as the night went on.

By the end of the evening, when everyone was wishing to head out for home, the driveway had pretty much been blocked off with a snowbank from the passing plows.  Husbands again went to work clearing the way.  My hubby lamented several times about our lack of checking the weather foreccast.  If we had realized what we were in for, we most certainly would have chosen his 4-wheel drive Chevy Suburban to travel in.  Usually my car is our travel-vehicle of choice due to its better gas mileage and smaller number on the odometer.

What followed was a white-knuckled, foot-shaking, stiff-necked, 20 mph ride home.  Living in New England, of course I’ve driven in snow before, but I found something about last night’s ride scary.  The roads in Connecticut were snowy and slippery and not well lit.  I was the responsible driver for my family and daughter’s boyfriend. I was the protector, at the time, of three young lives in my backseat.  Several times I wanted to pull over and ask hubby to drive, but we were afraid of losing momentum and ending up stuck in the snow with those tires now missing a bit more tread than they had arrived on if we dared to stop the car.  So onward, slow and steady, we made the trek home.

In the morning, I had a look around.

This was definitely more than an inch or two!

Although it wasn’t fun for driving, the dogs certainly found it fun for playing!

All is well that ends well, right?

Announcement:  Today is the beginning of a new week and at midnight tomorrow into Tuesday we ring in a new year.  How about we go for that dinner photography blog-along I mentioned a little while ago?  Take pictures of your dinner for about a week any time between now and January 13th – that’s two weeks from today, then post the pictures, along with a description, in a blog post.  Leave me a link in the comments in this post, and I will write a wrap up to send everyone around to maybe get some new ideas for dinner.  As I stated before, it matters not to me if your dinners are fancy or plain, homemade or pre-made, take-out or eat-in, vegetarian or carnivorous.  Like to use recipes?  Post a link if you like!  Prefer to do “a little of this, and a little of that”?  That’s okay too!  Just show me your food!  Due dates are loosey-goosey! 😉

Dogs, a little snow and a Fire!

Some of you may remember that I am not a huge fan of winter, but that even I was wishing for a touch of snow to make things look pretty outside.  The winter storm that just finished piling on the mid-west and made its way here to the northeast last night dropped a few inches here.  Then it rained heavily this morning and washed a lot of it away and left piles of slush.  I’m looking out the window right now at what appears to be what the weatherfolk refer to as a “wintery mix”.  Just messy, not pretty unfortunately.

Christmas morning also brought a touch of the white.  It wasn’t enough to cover the lawn, but the dogs enjoyed it.

We had a peaceful Christmas morning.

Oh, and you must be wondering about that fire in the title! No, it wasn’t that kind of fire, it was this kind:

Dear hubby surprised me with a Kindle Fire for Christmas. We had decided we were buying them for the girls for Christmas – imagine my surprise with being presented with one myself!

Later in the day we welcomed family for dinner, gift-giving

and desserts galore.

The new dishwasher hummed quietly throughout the day!  Tell me about your day in the comments if you like!

Did I sleep through February?

It sure felt like I must have today.  As the dogs and I went for our walk today, I’d swear it was late March.  The sun shined in a cloudless sky

that reflected in large puddles

and patches of melting ice

At 45°F in glorious sunshine, I thought I must be taking an early-spring rather than mid-winter walk.  We meandered our favorite path through mud and muck without complaint.

Teddy thought it a fine day for a stroll through the freely flowing stream, while I enjoyed taking this handsome collie profile with sun-sparkly water in the background:

The calendar did indeed say January 28, not March 28 when we arrived home.  If this is Mama Nature’s way of perhaps righting some wrongs of last year, I will take it! Thanks, Mama, for a lovely day!

Back to the Woods

Summer is slipping through our fingers, I’m sad to say.  Although autumn doesn’t officially begin until September 23rd this year, today, Labor Day, often feels like the end of the season.  It didn’t feel like summer was over to Daphne when I took this picture though!  Let me back up a little.

Saturday morning seemed like it was to be one of those delightful days – a nice one for either summer or fall – with wispy clouds, gentle breezes and a high of 80°.  I hadn’t taken the dogs for a walk in the woods for weeks, mostly because the last time we did so,  they came back covered in ticks or the days had started out just too humidly for me to want to make the trek.  I decided we would avoid the tall grasses and hope for the best this time out.

I was rewarded with beautiful sights along our path, looking so different from when Becky and I went out together back in the spring, or even from some of our early summer walks.

The old tractor path we follow was lush and green, forming almost tunnel-like feeling

This field of tall grasses developed a purply-pink color that I don’t remember seeing before – I think it is just this particular type of grass gone to seed.

Wild black-eyed susans,

milkweed,

and goldenrod were in full bloom

Giant dragonflies hovered above the fields, though I struggled to capture them in a photo:

And just for you, Kathy, I even found a mushroom I could consider a little bit beautiful in its pink color:

The dogs and I happily ambled along the paths, a few times turned around by impasses likely created by Irene, but had a thoroughly enjoyable walk.  A small swamp with a running stream across part of our path was a bit larger at this time of the year, after the significant rain we’ve had recently, which gets me back to the picture at the beginning of my post.  The last time I showed this part of our walk, it looked like this:

It was the end of March, and warm for that time of year, but probably at least 20 degrees cooler than this past Saturday.  I didn’t think it was overly warm out, but then I wasn’t wearing a fur coat!

Hope you enjoyed your Labor Day weekend!  Have a wonderful week.

Portrait of a Summer Evening

I don’t have to tell you it is hot.  Seems most of the country has been experiencing a heat wave over the last few days.  Thankfully, at least around here, it seems to be breaking today.  Highs should only be in the upper 80’s and we have a chance for showers throughout the day.  Due to the heat of the day, evening has been the more pleasant time to head outside, and it is a nice time for taking pictures.

The girls came outside for a swim and hand-stand practice:

The day lillies glow in the evening:

One of my dahlias showed a deep red that I have difficulty capturing in the daytime:

The sky was painted with swirly clouds:

And some of my favorite summer creatures came around for a photo session:

Tiger Swallowtail butterfly

Hummingbird moth

and my hummingbird took his evening post.

Daphne says, “I don’t care what you think, Mom, it is still too hot!”

My dog, the cat…

Found in the sunbeam coming through the sliding glass door this morning:

 

 

Picture Winter Day 27

“Give Yourself a Hand”

I’ve had this song stuck in my head while I contemplated today’s photo prompt:

Anyone out there who was a teen of the 80’s like me, might enjoy this little flashback to Jon’s big hair days!

As you may have guessed by now, the topic of today’s prompt is hands: “They can express, gesture, emphasize, communicate. Hands can do and say almost anything. Today, use a hand or hands as the subject of your shot; yours or someone else’s (or both).”

We are home for yet another snow day today, so I took advantage of mid-day sun streaming through my sliding glass door (gee, the light from that door has helped me out quite a bit this month!) to get this picture:

50mm lens, 1/4000 sec, f1.8

Daphne closed her eyes in happiness, enjoying the attention she received.

Connections – Picture Fall, day 20

Observe relationships and capture a connection that makes you happy was the theme of today’s prompt.  This wasn’t a difficult decision for me to make concerning my subject.  Luckily, they complied with a shot that I thought fit today’s prompt perfectly:

Reminds you a little bit of that famous scene from Lady and the Tramp, doesn’t it?

I took about 30 shots in process of finding one to share for today’s prompt.  Not all were well focused, but I thought enough of them were amusing enough to share a little slideshow, especially for dog-loving readers:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Dog Days

Like everything else this summer, the dog days seem to be early too.  Usually, at least here in New England, the humid, sultry days of  summer show up around the last week of July to the first weeks of August.  For the last few weeks around here, the average temperature  has been human body temperature and the humidity level has been pea soup.

Daphne here shows the average activity level that anyone has been feeling up to performing.  I took advantage of the opportunity to practice focusing on a sedentary object at different zoom levels.

Doesn’t she look soft and fluffy?  I think I’m seeing new levels of clarity with my Rebel buddy.

“It’s getting a little too hot out here, Mom.  Let’s go back inside so I can lay on an air conditioning vent.”

Okay, Daph.  Whatever you think is best.